In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) industrial logging is still totally out of control. Ongoing social conflicts, including extreme violence, rape and human rights abuse prompted Greenpeace International to file a complaint in April 2011 to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) about its association with the Congolese logging company Sodefor and its Liechtenstein-based parent company Nordsudtimber (NST) group.

The FSC says it stands for healthy forests and benefits for local people so should distance itself from companies associated with human rights violations. Last week, the FSC published its decision not to disassociate from NST. This scandalous decision is a huge setback for the affected communities and for the credibility of the FSC.

Sodefor is the biggest logging permit holder in the DRC. Greenpeace has reported on Sodefor’s involvement in social conflicts and illegal logging over the past years. The general pattern of these conflicts is clear: the community protests, because their landrights are not respected, taxes are not paid or the company does not comply with its legal obligations on social projects such as building schools and health centres for the community.

So, what more does the FSC need to disassociate from a logging company?

Based on the FSC’s Policy of Association, Greenpeace asked the FSC to immediately disassociate from Sodefor/NST and nullify its certificates. The FSC has now decided not to disassociate itself from Sodefor, but to: "start the suggested process to bring about required changes to Sodefor’s practices to ensure Sodefor will meet all the FSC’s requirements including the Policy of Association".

Sounds reasonable? But when you think about it, this is a clear contradiction. Why start a whole process with Sodefor to live up to the policy when you have just decided not to disassociate, because there is not enough evidence for non-compliance? And this policy was meant to rule out the big, bad and ugly in the first place, not to bring them in!

The FSC‘s credibility is at stake here. The complaint procedure took nearly 11 months when it should have taken only three months. In the meantime the human rights violations continued. The complaints panel says it "did not have the time nor the resources to carry out extensive field investigations" and it could not investigate our allegations on workers and labour rights. Sodefor can now continue to work with FSC. In total disregard of the reality on the ground.

We also filed a complaint in November 2011– against Siforco, at that time a DRC subsidiary of the Danzer group. By selling off Siforco it does not absolve the Danzer Group from being unaccountable for the controversial practices and human rights violations that occurred under its ownership and FSC must recognise and address this.

Industrial logging is out of control in Australia too and the conservation movement, who only want more National Parks, support recommendations that provide for the government to fund FSC to develop a National Forest Standard.

Unfortunately and without a focus on implementing ESFM the outcome is likely to be what we aleady have under the Australian Forestry Standard.

From this part of Australia conservation movement involvement with FSC equates with continuing to ignore the deforestation process and guarantees koalas will be driven to extinction.

FSC already operate in Australia and their record with koalas, forests and plantations is appalling.

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(Unregistered) kwaam-som-don
says:

I am an American expat living in northern Thailand. If I am not mistaken, FSC is associated with the Rainforest Alliance and I have the impression th...

I am an American expat living in northern Thailand. If I am not mistaken, FSC is associated with the Rainforest Alliance and I have the impression that the Alliance is one of the players in the commercial sale of forest products that are "certified." Everyone knows the first rule: If you want to find out what is actually going on, simply follow the money.